Early Life
Sidney Poitier was born in Miami, in Coconut Grove, where his Bahamian parents, Evelyn (née Outten) and Reginald James Poitier, traveled to sell tomatoes and other produce from their farm on Cat Island. His birth was two months premature and he was not expected to survive, but his parents remained three months in Miami to nurse him to health. Because of his birth in the U.S., he automatically gained U.S. citizenship. Poitier was raised in a Roman Catholic family. He grew up with his family on Cat Island, The Bahamas, then a British colony. At age 10, he moved to Nassau with his family. At the age of 15 he was sent to Miami to live with his brother. At the age of 17, he moved to New York City and held a string of jobs as a dishwasher. A Jewish waiter sat with him every night for several weeks helping him learn to read the newspaper. He then decided to join the United States Army after which he worked as a dishwasher until a successful audition landed him a spot with the American Negro Theater.
Read more about this topic: Sidney Poitier
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“In early times, before the floods swept across the world, there was life, albeit odd, as one can see from the fossils of mammoth bones, and there was the regime of Prince Metternich.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“The woods were as fresh and full of vegetable life as a lichen in wet weather, and contained many interesting plants; but unless they are of white pine, they are treated with as little respect here as a mildew, and in the other case they are only the more quickly cut down.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)